Death Parts Us: a serial killer thriller (DI Alec McKay Book 2)

by Alex Walters

  The chill blast of the wind on his skin had woken him up but done little to improve his mood. Frustrated by his own misery, McKay trudged back up the hill. He needed some exercise and he needed a drink. It wouldn’t be a great idea to return to the local bar. If nothing else, the small talk would be awkward. The only other option was the mile or so walk over to Fortrose, where he’d find a choice of places to drink.

  Fifteen minutes of brisk walking found him on Fortrose High Street. He was already feeling in a more positive frame of mind, his face tingling from the chill of the rising wind. The rain had held off so far, though he could feel it was coming.

  The smart move, he knew, would be to duck into the Anderson or the Union Bar, pubs where he could get himself a decent drink without risking any compromise of his own position. But, as he’d known from the moment he’d set off, he was already striding past those and heading towards the Caledonian Bar. In his head, he was rehearsing the conversation he’d have with Helena Grant if she ever found out. By the time he reached the door of the bar, he’d worked through a range of permutations but hadn’t yet come up with one that didn’t end with her giving him the mother of all bollockings.

  He was less surprised by the new interior glamour of the bar this time, but was still disconcerted by the changes. It was like seeing a full-colour, high definition photograph superimposed on a sepia Victorian print.

  Mid-evening, the bar was busy. There were a couple of families with children eating meals, a few younger couples, and over in the far corner, a group of more elderly men playing cards. Only the last group would have frequented the place in Denny Gorman’s day, McKay thought.

  He propped himself at the bar and surveyed the impressive array of beer pumps. Three cask ales, a couple of exotic looking lagers, an upmarket cider. Not to mention an impressive display of bottled stuff in the chill cabinets at the back of the bar.

  As he was mulling over his choice of drink, the young barmaid turned from some task she’d been completing by the register. ‘I know you,’ she said, without any preamble. ‘You’re the policeman.’

  So much for remaining incognito. ‘Aye, that’s me. The policeman. DI Alec McKay at your service.’ He peered at the young face in front of him. ‘Young Kerry, isn’t it?’

  ‘Kelly,’ she corrected. ‘Kelly Armstrong. But, yes. I didn’t know you stayed ‘round these parts.’

  ‘Long story,’ McKay said in a tone which confirmed he had no intention of sharing it. ‘Mind you, I’m even more surprised to find you in here.’

  She shrugged. ‘Changed, hasn’t it? And Denny Gorman’s long gone.’

  ‘No trace of him below stairs, even?’

  ‘The lingering ghost of Denny Gorman? Jeez, I hope not.’ She gave a mock shudder. ‘I didn’t want him anywhere near me even when he was alive.’

  ‘Not many people did.’ McKay gestured along the line of beer pumps. ‘What would you recommend?’

  ‘I’m not the one to ask,’ she said. ‘Callum always recommends the Cromarty Ales.’

  ‘I’ll try the stout then. I like things dark. Goes with the job. You still with that boyfriend of yours?’

  She was pulling the pint and didn’t look up at him. ‘Aye, well. That’s another long story.’

  McKay took the hint. ‘Still at Uni, though?’

  ‘Just back up for the vac,’ she said. ‘Uni’s great. Especially now I’m unencumbered, as it were.’

  Unencumbered, McKay thought. That was how it felt if you were eighteen. Less so at his age. ‘That’s grand, anyway.’

  She placed the pint in front of him and took his five-pound note. ‘You’re not here on business?’

  McKay knew from his previous dealings with her that she was more astute than her young appearance might suggest. ‘Purely social,’ he said.

  ‘Only, Callum said the police had been in asking about that poor man. The one who died.’

  McKay nodded. ‘Aye, that’s right. But just routine, you know? Has to be done with any unexplained death.’

  ‘Callum said the man’s poor wife was in here looking for him the night he went missing,’ Kelly went on. ‘Do they know what happened to him yet?’

  ‘It’s not my case,’ McKay said. ‘Imagine they’ve an idea by now.’

  Kelly gestured towards the cluster of elderly men in the corner. ‘Those are his mates, apparently. You know, drinking buddies. Was chatting to one of them earlier. Nice old man. Remembered me being here in Denny Gorman’s day. He was saying that your man –’

  ‘Billy Crawford,’ McKay prompted.

  ‘Aye, that he’d been a bit jittery in the days before he disappeared. Not himself. Like he was worried about something.’

  ‘That right?’ McKay kept his voice neutral. As far as he’d been aware, this information hadn’t emerged from any of the initial interviews they’d conducted following Crawford’s death, though they’d spoken to several of Crawford’s drinking partners. But that proved little. People were often cagey in what they revealed to the police. And, equally, people often exaggerated their recollections when chatting to their friends and acquaintances. This could be either, or nothing much at all.

  ‘Is it right he was a policeman?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘Aye. Retired.’ McKay gestured towards the group of elderly men. ‘I should maybe go and pay my respects. I worked with him, years ago.’

  Kelly nodded. At the far end of the bar, the father of one of the young families was waving his credit card, wanting to settle up. McKay left her to it and, cradling his pint, moved over to where Crawford’s drinking buddies were sitting.

  As he approached, the group, who’d been blethering away nineteen to the dozen, unexpectedly fell silent. McKay felt like the stranger who walks into the saloon in a low budget Western. ‘I understand Billy Crawford was a mate of yours?’ he asked, directing the question at no one in particular.

  ‘Who’s asking?’ one of the men said.

  McKay regarded the man who’d spoken. An overweight florid-faced man in a beige cardigan. Aye, one of Billy Crawford’s drinking buddies, right enough. ‘I’m an old friend myself.’

  ‘That so?’

  ‘Well, colleague,’ McKay added. He brandished his warrant card to the assembled group. The silence, as he’d expected, grew even more profound. ‘I worked with him when I first joined the force. Was sorry to hear the news.’

  The man was still looking suspicious. ‘This an official visit, then? Some of us have already spoken to you lot.’

  McKay held up his pint, as if it were some token of his good intentions. ‘Just popped in for a pint. Wanted to see how they’d done up the old place. It was the wee lassie behind the bar mentioned Billy’s name to me. Just thought I’d come over to pay my respects.’

  ‘You know any more yet about what happened to Billy?’ The florid-faced man sounded keen to get any gossip that might be going.

  ‘Not my case,’ McKay said. ‘Imagine there’ll be an inquest to determine the cause of death, though.’

  ‘Bit of a coincidence, him and Jackie Galloway,’ the man said. ‘And I hear there’s been some new trouble over in Rosemarkie.’ It sounded as if he already knew as much as McKay did.

  McKay shrugged. ‘Aye, sad times, right enough. You don’t expect anything to happen just walking home from the pub.’

  ‘That’s if Billy did just walk home,’ a second man said. For a second, the group fell silent again, as if the man had spoken out of turn.

  ‘I’m just saying –’

  ‘You’re saying nothing,’ the florid-faced man intervened. ‘Let’s not speak ill of the dead. Billy was a grand chap.’

  ‘I’m not –’ The other man finally recognised he was being silenced. ‘Aye, he was that.’

  McKay knew there was no point in pushing it. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, raising his pint to them. ‘Just wanted to pass on my condolences.’

  He returned to sit at the bar, enjoying the continuing silence behind him. It took them a few seconds
to begin chatting again. McKay finished his pint and ordered a second, along with a pack of upmarket crisps. ‘Nice bunch,’ he said to Kelly.

  ‘Aye. Part of the old crowd. Not sure Callum really wants that kind of clientele, but they’re harmless enough.’

  McKay nodded, his eye still half on the group. The man who’d apparently said too much about Billy Crawford had had a packet of cigarettes on the table in front of him. McKay assumed that at some point he’d head for a quick drag outside the front doors. The only question was whether he’d go alone. McKay assumed there’d be more than one smoker among that group.

  Sure enough, after a few minutes, the man picked up his cigarettes, said something to the group and made his way towards the doors. To McKay’s relief, none of the others accompanied him. Maybe he was being cold-shouldered for shooting his mouth off.

  Trying not to hurry, McKay finished his pint and the last few crisps, nodded to Kelly, picked up his coat, and headed towards the door himself.

  Outside, the weather had turned colder, and a fine rain had started to fall. The streetlights and shopfronts along the high street were haloed with mist. The man was huddled in the doorway, drawing heavily on a cigarette.

  ‘They’ll be the death of you, you know?’ McKay said, stepping past him.

  ‘Aye. It’s a race between this and the booze which’ll get me first.’

  ‘You seemed to want to say something about Billy Crawford in there?’

  ‘None of my business,’ the man said. ‘But if you lot are looking into his death, you should know he didn’t always go straight home.’

  ‘That right?’

  ‘Aye. He had a fancy woman. Widow. Meg Barnard. Nice little arrangement, I’m told.’

  ‘How’d you know this?’

  ‘Ach, everybody knows it. Well, everybody except Billy’s widow. That’s one reason Fat Bob in there doesn’t like people talking about it. He’s got a soft spot for Jeanie Crawford. He’ll be in there, now she’s free and single again. She’ll be worth a bob or two as well.’

  ‘You know where this Meg Barnard lives?’

  ‘Aye.’ He gave McKay a street name, just off the high street, down towards the sea. McKay’s first suspicions had been correct, then. It might help explain how Crawford came to be in the water. ‘Don’t know the number. But it’s a bungalow, down at the far end on the right. You’ll find it.’

  McKay nodded. ‘Thanks. I’ll pass on the information.’

  ‘But you’ll treat it discreetly, like? None of us wants to see Jeanie hurt.’

  ‘Soul of discretion,’ McKay said. ‘You best get back to your mates. Or the cold’ll get you even before the fags do.’

  ‘Aye, bonny Scotland, eh?’

  McKay stood for a moment after the man had gone, feeling the cold rain running down his neck. The smart thing to do was to relay this bit of intelligence back to Helena Grant in the morning. She’d want to know how he came by it, but he could give her an innocent enough answer to that. Just chatting in the pub, he’d say. All blokes together. You know how it is.

  Aye, that was the smart thing to do. But Alec McKay had never had much of a reputation for doing the smart thing. Not when there was a chance to do something much dumber instead.

  26

  McKay looked at his watch. Still not eight-thirty. Not too late to be paying a social call. He pressed the bell. There were lights showing behind a couple of the curtained windows, but no other sign of movement or life. Maybe there was still time for him to salvage what might be left of his career, he thought. Then, he pressed the bell again. The rain was still falling, a fine mist that chilled McKay’s skin.

  After a moment, he heard sounds from beyond the door. It opened a few inches, held in place by a hefty-looking chain. ‘Yes?’

  In for a penny, McKay thought. He held out his warrant card. ‘DI McKay. I’m looking for a Meg Barnard.’

  There was silence. Then, the door closed and reopened, fully this time. The woman inside was short, blonde and buxom. McKay found it difficult to estimate her age. Younger than Jeanie Crawford, certainly, but probably not by much. ‘This about Billy? I wondered how long it would take you.’

  ‘Might have been better if you’d made contact with us yourself, Mrs Barnard.’ He paused. ‘It is Mrs?’

  ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘The gay divorcee, that’s me. You’d best come through.’ She glanced at his sodden waterproof. ‘And you’d better hang that out here.’

  She led him through into a neat and, to McKay’s eyes, feminine-looking sitting room. There was a preponderance of pink and frills, along with an array of cushions that seemed designed to deter visitors from taking any of the available seats. It was difficult to imagine Billy Crawford being comfortable in a room like this. But he imagined that Crawford hadn’t come here for the decor.

  McKay managed to accommodate himself among the soft furnishings. The television was on, the volume silenced. Meg Barnard took the seat opposite the television. There was a glass and a half-empty bottle of gin on the small coffee table beside her. Barnard’s demeanour suggested she might have consumed much of the missing half that evening.

  ‘I miss Billy,’ she said, with no preamble. ‘I didn’t think I would, but I do. Poor wee bastard.’

  McKay was still wondering how to steer round this conversation. ‘Had you known him long?’

  ‘Only twenty years,’ she said. ‘I used to work in the force. Admin.’ She leaned forward. ‘In fact, I remember you, Alec McKay. You were a cocky wee bastard.’

  ‘Nothing changes,’ McKay said. ‘But that’s a long time.’

  ‘To be someone’s mistress, you mean? Aye, I suppose. But it suited me. The one thing I learned from being married was that I’m not the marrying kind. I like my own company too much.’

  ‘But you still wanted to see Billy Crawford.’

  ‘Aye, well, that was just sex, wasn’t it?’

  McKay nodded. It was clear there was no need to go around the houses with this one. ‘That was it? Sex?’

  ‘Mainly. I mean, Billy could be a laugh. Decent company. But I wouldn’t have wanted to live with him. I don’t know how poor Jeanie managed.’

  Poor Jeanie. ‘You knew her?’

  ‘Not really. I met her a couple of times in the old days. And I’ve seen her around the village. But it was just what Billy said about her.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Ach, that she was a fussing old hen.’

  ‘You reckon she knew anything about your … arrangement with Billy?’

  ‘Billy always reckoned not. I reckon women aren’t usually that blind. Maybe it suited her as well.’

  McKay raised an eyebrow. ‘You think?’

  ‘Got him out from under her feet.’ She allowed him a smile. ‘At least it wasn’t golf.’

  ‘Aye, there is that,’ McKay conceded. ‘Did you see him the night he went missing?’

  She shook her head. ‘He texted to say he might call in, but never turned up.’

  ‘You weren’t worried?’

  ‘That wasn’t the kind of relationship we had. If he turned up, he turned up. If he didn’t, I’d spend the evening with my spiritual friend there.’ She gestured towards the gin bottle. ‘I might end up feeling a little horny. But there are ways of dealing with that.’ She was still smiling.

  McKay shifted awkwardly among the pile of cushions, feeling more uncomfortable than he’d have expected with Meg Barnard’s directness. ‘Was it usual for him to text you?’

  ‘It varied. He’d usually have his tea with Jeanie, then head off to the pub early evening. If he felt like paying me a visit, he’d usually text me first. But sometimes, he’d text and then get caught up in some conversation and wouldn’t make it over here before it was time to head back to Jeanie. He didn’t like staying out too late. Knew she’d worry.’

  ‘Very considerate.’ None of this sounded much like McKay’s idea of a relationship, or indeed of a marriage, but he was hardly in the best position to offer an op
inion. ‘What time did he text you?’ As far as McKay could recall, no mobile phone had been found on Crawford’s person. Most likely it was lying at the bottom of the firth somewhere.

  ‘I can check.’ She fumbled in a garish pink handbag by the side of her chair and pulled out a mobile phone. She scrolled back through the list of texts and passed it over to McKay.

  McKay had been half expecting some romantic, or as least erotic, message but the text simply said: “Maybe see you later?” Perhaps Crawford had kept the wording of his exchanges with Meg Barnard neutral in case his wife should see them. But it seemed more likely that this was just the kind of man he was. Barnard had texted back: “Aye. I’m around.” Touching, McKay thought.

  The texts were both timed at 7.03 p.m., presumably not long after Crawford had first arrived at the pub. Crawford had clearly been planning ahead. Callum Donnelley, the landlord at the Caledonian Bar, had said that Crawford usually left around eight or eight thirty. ‘If he had come ‘round, what sort of time would you have expected him?’

  ‘Eight-ish, I guess,’ Meg Barnard said. ‘Much later than that and he wouldn’t bother. He liked to get back to Jeanie not much after nine.’

  ‘He didn’t text you again?’

  ‘That wasn’t Billy’s style. If he turned up, he turned up. If he didn’t – well, I’d know he’d just stayed for another drink and then headed home. His loss, to be honest.’

  McKay was silent for a moment. ‘You reckon anyone else knew about your relationship with Billy?’

  She laughed. ‘I reckon the whole village knew but were too polite to say anything. Ach, you know how people are. Keep ourselves to ourselves. Not our place to judge.’ She’d affected a high-pitched, prissy accent for the last two statements. ‘All that crap. That’s why I can’t believe Jeanie didn’t have an inkling.’ She stopped, her voice suddenly serious. ‘You really think someone might have wanted to kill Billy?’

  ‘We just have to explore all the possibilities. The real question is how he got into the water.’

  ‘We’re close to the water’s edge here,’ she said. ‘If you go a hundred yards or so past the end of the road, you can walk down to the firth. It’s not far – another fifty yards or so. But I can’t imagine what would have taken Billy down there. He wasn’t exactly the sightseeing type.’